Osceola Official: Disney Calls Hotels' 'Sleaze' Ad An Error

November 22, 1985|By Jean Claude de la France of The Sentinel Staff

KISSIMMEE — Walt Disney World vice president Bob Allen said Thursday that a Disney- related advertisement characterized as ''sleaze'' by an Osceola County commissioner should not have been published, the commissioner said.

Commissioner Mike Bast said Allen told him the ad ''was one of those things that slipped through the cracks and should not have been run.''

Bast had sent Allen a letter denouncing the ad as ''sleaze'' after seeing it in the November issue of New England Monthly and the 1985-86 issue of Canadian Travel Press magazine. The ad's illustrations show hotels on Disney World property as comfortable and luxurious; those not on Disney property are depicted as roadside truck stops.

The magazine ads were co-sponsored by the Lake Buena Vista Hotel Association and Walt Disney World Travel Co.

Bast, a former commission chairman, said Allen told him Disney officials ''should have checked the ad more closely'' but failed to do so because the association, not Disney Travel, commissioned the ads through Disney's creative-arts department.

''He agreed with me that the ad was unfortunate,'' Bast said.

Disney World is in Orange County, just north of the Osceola County line. Osceola, which includes the Kissimmee-St. Cloud resort area, derives most of the revenue used by its Tourist Development Council from a tax on the county's 116 hotels and motels.

Disney officials have said that the ads were not aimed specifically at Osceola County.

Allen was out of town Thursday and not expected back until Monday. A spokesman in his office confirmed that Allen and Bast had spoken with each other but did not know the content of the conversation.

Disney spokesman John Dreyer said Osceola officials need not worry about the ad because it was ''for single use'' and will not be used again.

Hotel association representatives discussed the ad during a closed-door meeting Tuesday. The association's executive director, Dan Darrow, a Disney employee, said through an aide that he would not comment on the meeting.

Other members of the association refused to comment on the issue, referring all questions to association president Garry Cross, general manager of the Hotel Royal Plaza. Cross did not return telephone calls to his office Thursday.

The ad, titled ''When you're outside The World you're outside the Magic,'' was paid for by the six ''official hotels of Walt Disney'': The Hilton, Hotel Royal Plaza, Howard Johnson's Resort Hotel, Americana Dutch Resort, Viscount Hotel and Buena Vista Palace.

The hotels are not owned by Disney but are on Disney land and adhere to certain standards set by Disney.

The ad, drawn by a Disney artist, contrasted life inside and outside the Magic Kingdom.

Inside, a man and a woman relax in lounge chairs under palm trees near a pool while being served drinks. Outside, a couple stands inside a small inflatable pool with two small children, one crying, at their feet. The pool is at the edge of a parking lot; a tractor-trailer is parked in front of a two-story motel, and clothes are strung on a line from a motel balconey.